Stateside for Wednesday, May 14, 2014

A power company wants to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste less than a mile away from Lake Huron in Kincardine, Ontario.

Now a scientist who once worked for the nuclear waste facility is speaking out. He says some of the materials that would be stored underground are hundreds of times more radioactive than what was told to governmental officials. What do these new findings mean for the Kincardine project and the Great Lakes?

Then vintage trailer fans from around the country are heading to Camp Dearborn this weekend for the Tin Can Tourists' Annual Gathering. We talk travel trailers with them later in the show.

But first, we check in on Congressman John Conyers. He turns 85 this Friday, and the ballot snafu is likely not the birthday gift that Congressman Conyers would have wished for.

He’ll be filing an appeal with the state after yesterday's announcement by Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett that he did not have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions to be on the August primary ballot.

Garrett says only 592 of the necessary 1,000 signatures are valid. Many signatures were disqualified because the people collecting the signatures were not registered voters. According to law, that voids the signatures they collected.

If his appeal to the state fails, Conyers is talking about mounting a write-in campaign for the primary.

All of this has those who have watched John Conyers since he was first elected to Congress in 1964 thinking about his "epic journey" through the decades, and what an ending to a career this could be.

Michigan Radio's political commentator Jack Lessenberry joined us today to talk about this.